Mental health strategy ‘thin on clear allocations’, says Cork TD

A newly-published implementation plan for the Government’s mental health strategy is “dense on aspirational language but thin on clear, concrete resource allocations”, a Cork TD has said.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and mental health minister Mary Butler launched ‘Sharing the Vision: A Mental Health Policy for Everyone Implementation Plan 2025 - 2027’ earlier this week.

Actions committed to over the three-year implementation plan include implementing a model for measuring policy outcomes, providing increased capacity for counselling in primary care services, rolling out the national autism protocol, and supporting people with mental health difficulties to access independent housing.

Also included in the plan is the implementation of the Mental Health Bill 2024, the development of a 10-year mental health capital plan, and the publication of a national model of care for child and youth mental health services.

At the launch, the Government noted that year-on-year funding for mental health services has increased by €143.5m, from €1.338bn in Budget 2024 to nearly €1.5bn in 2025.

However, the Social Democrats’ mental health spokesperson and TD for Cork East, Liam Quaide, said that while the plan’s emphasis on trauma-informed service delivery is promising, “there is no detail provided on what this means in practice, or any related commitment to investment”.

He said: “The strength of the previous ‘A Vision for Change’ document was that it set out clear staffing allocations for the achievement of its goals based on population need. Over subsequent years, this allowed for a clear comparison between actual and necessary service provision.”

However, he said the implementation plan “uses non-committal, vague language such as “appropriately resourced”, and therefore obscures the Government’s responsibilities in this regard: “There is an emphasis in the document on mental health promotion and stigma reduction but a failure to reckon with the core crisis facing our services as a result of the HSE’s continued restrictions on recruitment that have replaced the official embargo.

“Ongoing reviews of service need and bed capacity are offered instead of, for example, a clear commitment to increase vital specialist eating disorders inpatient provision, or adequate staffing measures to address the escalating crisis in primary care psychology services for young people”.